Customers of print jobs can require finishing steps for their jobs. These steps include, for example, folding printed or blank sheets, cutting sheets, scoring sheets, trimming sheets to size and shape, cutting specialty shapes into the edges or interior of a sheet, forming multiple sheets into bound signatures or booklets, binding individual pages or signatures into books, and fastening covers to books by e.g. stapling, saddle-stitching, or gluing. These operations are to be performed on receiver materials of various types, including various thicknesses of paper, for example ranging from India paper to card stock. For example, a number of business cards are printed together on a large sheet of stiff card stock. After printing, individual cards are produced by cutting the sheets of cards into individual business cards.
Conventional finishing equipment is typically not suited for use in consumer occupied environments such as stores or business establishments, and typically requires trained personnel to safely and effectively use it. Cutters typically include large guillotines that use heavy impacts to cut through thick stacks of paper. For example, the INTIMUS PL265 programmable cutter by MARTIN YALE of Wabash, IN cuts up to a 2⅞″ stack of paper and weighs 823 lbs. There is a need, therefore, for smaller, lighter finishing equipment to incorporate into devices used by consumers at home or in retail environments. Furthermore, unlike offset presses which run a large number of copies of a single print job, digital printers can produce small numbers of copies of a job, requiring more frequent changes to the finishing sequence. In some cases, each printed page must be finished individually. The PL265 cutter can only store 10 cutting programs, so cannot produce more than 10 cut patterns without manual intervention. There is a need, therefore, for flexible and programmable finishing equipment that can finish each page individually without manual intervention.
Esler describes the CP Bourg BCMe rotary creasing unit, which can score the full width of a receiver sheet in a straight line without stopping the transport of the receiver (Esler, Bill. “Inline scoring for digital presses.” Graphic Arts Monthly March 2010: 33). However, this device cannot score programmably or across only part of a receiver, and cannot cut sheets.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,099,225 to Allen et al. describes finishing operations performed on a sheet-by-sheet basis using precision paper positioning and a transverse tool carrier. However, this scheme can waste paper due to trimming. Furthermore, this scheme is not well-suited to high-speed operation in which receivers should be moved at a constant velocity through the entire printing and finishing apparatus.
The CRICUT cutter by PROVO CRAFT can cut shapes into individual sheets of paper. However, the machine requires manual loading and unloading. Furthermore, the CRICUT moves the sheet to be cut back and forth during cutting, making it unsuitable for high-volume applications that need continuous-speed sheet transport.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,850,803, issued Sep. 9, 1958 to Briskman et al. and entitled “Shears with arcuate profiled teeth,” describes pinking shears which can be used to make scalloped cuts in sheets of paper, or to provide a piece of paper with scalloped edges. However, these shears are strictly manual, and are not suitable for automated use.
There is a continuing need, therefore, for a way of scoring and cutting sheets in small, customizable finishers.